Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode Title: "A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe"
Host: Schneer Zalman Newfield
Guests: Debra Kaplan, Elisheva Carlebach
Date: January 29, 2026

In this episode, Schneer Zalman Newfield interviews historians Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach about their groundbreaking book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025). The conversation explores the previously underappreciated richness of Jewish women’s lives from 1500-1800, discussing the abundance of sources, women’s roles in community and family, their participation in the economy, spirituality, and more, countering long-standing assumptions of historical silence on Jewish women.

Authors' Background and Book Genesis

• Elisheva Carlebach describes her career as a historian and how, while co-teaching a course with Debra Kaplan on Jewish women in medieval and early modern history, the lack of available sources and student materials inspired their journey toward writing this book. Their project incubated over 20 years, driven by ongoing discoveries in archives and teaching experience. (02:11 – 03:57)
  • “We realized that there was almost nothing to assign to our students…so we began compiling our own little stash of sources, if you will. This was over 20 years ago, and I think that was one of the things that planted a seed that became this book.” – Elisheva Carlebach [02:28]
• Debra Kaplan emphasizes how their work evolved alongside other research, as repeated discoveries of Jewish women in archival materials led them to recognize the abundance overlooked by previous scholars. She encourages young researchers to revisit sources with new perspectives. (04:23 - 06:09)
  • “It's actually amazing to go back to the material you once saw with other eyes and to say, you know…here’s a Jewish woman that I wasn’t paying attention to because I was looking at money lending in Strasbourg.” – Debra Kaplan [05:23]

Availability and Types of Sources

• Contrary to assumptions, the early modern period offers an abundance of sources referencing Jewish women by name and activity.
  • “Many great scholars...said, 'There's nothing you can do with it because there are no sources.'...There's an absolute abundance of sources. The moment you begin to attend to those voices, there are just a tremendous number of sources.” – Elisheva Carlebach [07:20]
• Key sources include:
  • Communal records: tax lists, fines, and regulations where women appear as heads of households ("balotbayit"). [08:31+]
  • Printed materials: With the rise of print and literacy, new genres (especially Yiddish books for women) emerge, often authored, printed, or commissioned by women. Examples include Estelina Konat (early Hebrew printer) and a nine-year-old female printer named Ella. [12:02+]
  • Manuscripts and material culture: illuminated prayer books, hats, pots.
  • Inventories and artifacts: household items, jewelry, and even letterboxes as wedding gifts. [44:45+]

Context: The Early Modern Jewish Community

• The period c. 1500-1800 saw the rebuilding of Jewish communities post-expulsions and plague, with formalized communal structures (leadership, taxation, charity). These structures generated ample records capturing women's roles as members of, and sometimes as leaders within, the community. [08:31+]
• Takanot (community ordinances): Local regulations reveal details on women’s social lives, behavioral norms, and gendered expectations (e.g., fines for moral infractions targeted at women). Ordinances also governed rituals and attendance at events like circumcisions. [15:20+]
  • “Women were very often fined because of a question of morality, whereas for men, it was mostly questions of honesty.” – Elisheva Carlebach [15:20]

Women's Roles in Community & Professions

Communal Leadership and Societies

• While the top level of elected leadership was male-only, women were active and sometimes leaders in voluntary societies (hevrot), such as burial societies (Chevra Kadisha), charity organizations, and ritual bath (mikvah) management. [21:45+]
  • The women’s burial society in Prague was so effective that the men tried (unsuccessfully) to control it. [23:29+]
    • “The women were too successful in what they were doing, and it put them in a bad light.” – Debra Kaplan [23:46]
• Midwives: Often highly trained and respected, sometimes with formal education (esp. in the Netherlands); they kept critical birth records, contributing to community continuity. [26:34+]

Economic Activity

• Jewish women took part in money-lending, trade, market selling, printing, and sometimes even banking as “court Jews.” They sometimes ran businesses independently or alongside their husbands (e.g., Glickel of Hameln), often more so than counterparts in Christian society. [49:35+]
• Unusual occupations included letter-carrying between cities and roles in criminal networks on the margins of society. [33:26+]

Women's Religious, Daily, and Material Lives

• Domestic and Ritual Life: Women managed religious observance both at home (kosher food, Sabbath, festivals) and in synagogues. Memorial and custom books show high piety, ritual knowledge, and regular synagogue attendance. [53:32+]
  • “Women were deeply pious, took their religion very seriously, both in the home and in the synagogue.” – Elisheva Carlebach [53:32]
• Material Culture: Inventories and artwork reveal women owned and used many items—household goods, jewelry, manuscripts, prayer books, and letterboxes—with detailed descriptions found in communal inventories taken after death. [44:45+]
  • “Every household item that this person had assembled over a lifetime is listed in the inventory...you name it, this is the material that surrounded people.” – Elisheva Carlebach [48:12]

Margins: Poverty, Vagrancy, and Social Exclusion

• Women at the periphery included servants, poor migrants, criminal accomplices, and outcasts due to moral or financial infractions.
  • “Regardless of whether they were urban or rural...people either fell out of the center or were pushed out.” – Elisheva Carlebach [35:59]
• Hospices (hekdesh) provided care for marginalized women, including shelter, medical help, employment, and sometimes a rare path to social reintegration. [38:12+]
  • “Through institutions like the hospice and the records that they generated...we are able to glimpse from the center these people on various levels of the margin.” – Debra Kaplan [39:55]

Unique and Notable Sources

• Love Letters: A responsum reveals a rare, early Yiddish love letter, the “kosher panim” letter, included verbatim in a rabbi’s answer about suspected adultery—an accidental preservation of women’s intimate voices. [40:53+]
  • “What is probably the oldest surviving Yiddish love letter...there’s something very real about the whole thing.” – Debra Kaplan [40:53]
• Visual Depictions: Illuminated manuscripts and even Christian Hebraist books provide rare images of Jewish women, including scenes of mikvah immersion from the 16th-18th centuries. [30:37+]
  • “Those are really beautiful and have magnificent color and detail...We even found one interesting example...of a woman preparing maybe just bathing.” – Debra Kaplan [30:37]

Comparison to Christian Counterparts

• Jewish and Christian women’s lives paralleled each other in class-based activities and gendered labor. Still, Jewish women’s occupations were sometimes more restricted or specialized due to legal and economic discrimination (e.g., money lending), and their community structures and rituals were distinctive. [49:35+]
  • “Class was a bigger dividing line determining women's lives than gender was...but there are some distinctions according to class and also according to religion and the restrictions that govern Jewish professions more broadly for both men and women.” – Debra Kaplan [51:03]

Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's actually amazing to go back to the material you once saw with other eyes...” – Debra Kaplan [05:23]
• “The women were too successful in what they were doing, and it put them in a bad light.” – Debra Kaplan [23:46]
• “The margins are just as important to us as the center in a certain way.” – Elisheva Carlebach [33:26]
• “What is probably the oldest surviving Yiddish love letter...” – Debra Kaplan [40:53]
• “Women were deeply pious, took their religion very seriously, both in the home and in the synagogue.” – Elisheva Carlebach [53:32]

Key Timestamps

• [02:11] Authors’ academic backgrounds and origins of the book
• [08:31] Sources: types and period context
• [15:20] Takanot and their gendered impact
• [21:45] Women’s leadership and voluntary associations
• [26:34] The profession of midwifery and women’s health roles
• [30:37] Visual culture: mikvah imagery and more
• [33:26] Marginality, poverty, and outcast women
• [40:53] The “kosher panim” love letter and women’s writing
• [44:45] Women’s material worlds through inventories and artifacts
• [49:35] Comparisons with Christian women and cross-class differences
• [53:32] Women's religious roles in home and synagogue

Conclusion

Kaplan and Carlebach’s research overturns assumptions about the invisibility of Jewish women in early modern Europe, revealing them as vibrant, active, and documented agents in public, private, religious, and economic spheres. Their book, through painstaking archival work and fresh analytical perspective, opens an untold chapter in Jewish and women's history.

This summary omits advertisements, introductory and concluding formalities, focusing exclusively on content-rich discussion segments.